Growing Revenue with the Right Spot Load

Grow your revenue by getting your existing clients to buy more spots! This sounds simple, but you need data to demonstrate the value of this investment to justify your request to the advertiser.

Historically, one of the first parts of the sales conversation is the salesperson asking, “What is your budget?” Once the budget is determined, the advertiser asks, “What can I get for my budget?”

The more important question should be, “What are you trying to achieve?” This simple question can determine the number of spots – and therefore frequency – that the advertiser needs to be successful. To keep things simple, let’s consider three basic levels of advertiser goals:

• Very light and light schedules: Ideal for advertisers who want a maintenance campaign with modest levels of reach and frequency.
• Medium schedule: A general sales event or promotional campaign where a good number of listeners are reached often.
• Heavy schedule: A major sales event or product launch where many people are reached very frequently.

The calculation to determine the number of spots needed uses turnover, which a typical salesperson might not have even thought about since they started selling. Turnover is your Cume Persons divided by your AQH Persons. It’s the inverse of Time Spent Listening. The higher the TSL, the lower the turnover, and therefore, the fewer spots that are needed to achieve a higher frequency.

Going back to the beginning of our original sales conversation, the first question should not be, “What is your budget?” but rather, “What are you trying to achieve with your advertising schedule?” While this differs greatly across stations and formats, an advertiser who wants a “medium schedule” should generally run between 42 and 60 spots per week. This means a light schedule is less than 42 spots and a heavy schedule is more than 60 spots.

Refer to our last two essays for details on building Reach and Frequency. Create sample schedules with different spot loads to show advertisers how a higher spot load will help them achieve their goals … and you will grow your revenue with existing clients!